


things that are wrong with this picture

by Fahye



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F, Obedience
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-02
Updated: 2012-01-02
Packaged: 2017-11-14 19:28:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/518728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fahye/pseuds/Fahye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's like a game of Simon Says only you can't get caught out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	things that are wrong with this picture

**Author's Note:**

  * For [littledust](https://archiveofourown.org/users/littledust/gifts).



The answer to "And what if I say no?" turns out to be "No sex, no making out, not even any holding hands in the corridors" only because it's Brit what she actually says is "Then I guess...syphilis?" because of that stupid sex ed experiment where they all wore bright coloured hats with CHLAMYDIA and HERPES written on them, and nobody was allowed to touch anyone else in any way at all for two whole days without Coach Sylvester descending upon them with a yell of "Your immune system just got RAPED!"

There were complaints.

And Brittany managed to come away from it with the idea that syphilis was a special kind of personal space bubble bestowed by hats.

The point is: Santana understands what she means. And the _fact_ that she understands is one of the reasons that she knows she's going to say yes, even though she doesn't like the idea at all, even though Santana Lopez is _always_ the one calling the shots.

She's also going to say yes because her body is missing Brittany in weird little ways that she never anticipated: she leans sideways in glee and is confused by the fact that there's a wide gap between her and the next body over; usually because the next body is Tina, who is half in Mike's lap. She spins a pen through her fingers and stares at Brittany's ponytail in Spanish class, and she has to throw out three lipglosses because the tastes are too familiar and she finds herself angry and horny half an hour later. Her body is used to getting what it wants and now, denied for weeks, it's kicking up a fuss.

But mostly she's going to say yes because it's about fucking time she got her best friend back.

"Fine," she says. "We can give it a try."

Brittany's face relaxes. "Thanks," she says.

"Thank _you_ ," Santana says, forcing herself to sound arch so that she doesn't sound pathetically needy.

Brittany holds out her hand. "Hold hands with me," she says.

They're halfway to rehearsal, Brittany's hand warm and familiar in hers, before Santana figures out that the game has already started.

~

Because it is a game. That's the only noun that calms some of the itch in Santana's spine whenever she thinks too hard about what she's agreed to.

"I'd like some more jello, please," Brittany says, absently sliding her empty cup to the left so that it's bumping shoulders with Santana's diet soda.

The thing to do is act like it's no big deal.

Santana pushes her chair back, colliding with a hapless math geek's legs. "Out of my way, dimwit," she says, not even looking him in the eye, and tosses the empty jello cup into the trash like she's Kurt and she's just discovered that it's a belt from Walmart.

Green is Brit's favourite flavour because she never gotten over her delight that it _doesn't_ taste like plastic grass.

"You're so fucking whipped," says Puck, when Santana sits down again.

"Bite me, Puckerman," says Santana. She peels the foil lid off Brittany's jello and flicks it at his head. It gets stuck in his stupid mohawk, which has the bonus effect of making Brittany laugh. Santana sticks a new plastic spoon into the jello at a jaunty angle and puts on her best flight attendant face, just to mess with Puck's head even further.

"Thanks," says Brittany.

Their fingers brush as Brittany takes the cup.

~

"I'd like to hear Kurt take on some Aguilera," says Mike, which gets a cheer for being the best non-joking suggestion yet. Mr Schue's super fabulous bonding and sparkles idea of the week is that they nominate songs for other glee members to sing, with the point being that they're showing how well they _listen_ to everyone else's _voices_ , and helping each other _grow_ as _performers_. So far three different people have asked Sam to rap, and Puck and Zizes seems to be playing a warped private game where they name progressively more obscene song titles with progressively louder voices and progressively straighter faces.

In the pause that follows Lauren's admittedly spectacular delivery of, "Hey, Hudson, let's hear your version of Fuck Yourself" --

("That is so not a real song," Finn protests later.

"Reel Big Fish," Lauren drawls back.

"What?" says Finn.)

\-- Brittany lifts her head from Santana's shoulder, looks at her, and says, "You should sing Barbie Girl."

"Really?" says Rachel, obviously aiming for polite but instead looking like someone's pissed on Gilbert and Sullivan's graves. Normally Santana would want to punch her but right now all she's providing is the perfect excuse.

Santana leans down and insinuates herself between Rachel's pigtails and Finn's freakishly large shoulders. "Was that a _challenge_ , Baby Spice?"

"I just meant, considering your voice from all angles, and I mean this in --"

"Yeah, you're on," says Santana, and pushes her way down to the front. When she turns around Rachel's actually got her serious listening face on -- look at that, some maturity from the Berry corner, amazing -- and Brittany has her hand in her chin, looking rapt, looking fucking _smitten_ , just because Santana's willing to sing a terrible song for her.

"Uh," says Mr Schue.

"Guys?" Santana says to the band, who are generally fantastic at improv but are probably not ready to tackle something so random and so synthesised. Santana's prepared to go a capella if she has to.

But then Mickey Sandlilands, who hasn't even got the cajones to stand up to Mr Schue (even though the man has a face like a crisply worried lettuce and has been calling him Ricky for like three months) shoots her a grin, winks in Brittany's direction, and clacks his drumsticks together in answer.

~

"Two buttons," says Brittany.

Santana undoes the top two buttons of her shirt, resisting the accompanying urge to smirk and shift her weight onto one hip. They've been out all afternoon, first for a punishing run and then to BreadstiX, where their normal thing is to sip non-fat lattes and bitch pleasantly about the people at nearby tables to cover up the fact that they're jealous of their chili fries.

(Today Brittany told her to order them strawberry milkshakes, and Santana did, mustering enough attitude that the waitress closed her mouth on what was obviously going to be a snide comment about diets, the breaking of.)

"Hmm, now mine?"

If she looked unaffected then Santana would be tempted to storm out, unbuttoned shirt and broken promise and not-syphilis and all, and maybe if she was doing this with a different kind of person then that's what would happen. But Brittany is all but bouncing on her toes in the way she does when she's excited, her dancer's legs long and mobile all the way down, and her lips are parted.

"Two buttons?" Santana says, looking at Brittany's tight T-shirt -- and, not incidentally, Brittany's boobs.

Brittany takes hold of Santana's hand and guides it to the only buttons on her current outfit which are, _oh yeah_ , at the top of her shorts. Fuck. Santana feels a twist of heat near her clit that's hard enough to make her stomach muscles clench and her fingers fumble at the buttons with a clumsiness she hasn't displayed since the very first time she tried to remove Brittany's bra. That's how she feels now, fifteen and dizzy with closeness.

She undoes the buttons and keeps her hand there, two fingers just inside the gape of denim, applying barely any pressure. Brittany gives a gasp and a little roll of her hips that puts Santana's fingers flush against the warm, intimate cotton, and Santana has to lock her knees in a great feat of Cheerios discipline to stop them from either collapsing or springing into action and shoving both of them down onto the bed.

"Brit, babe, unless you think of something for me to do, I'm going to improvise."

"Hands up here," Brittany says, tapping her own jaw, and Santana makes a gentle frame out of her hands and just _looks_ , for a second, and then it’s too much and she leans in and kisses Brittany, sudden and quick, holding her in place.

"Mm, okay, bed," and Brittany drags her down so fast that they both bounce a bit and laugh. Brittany lies on her back and beckons, and when Santana leans over her she reaches for her top and finishes off the buttons, pushing it back off her shoulders. Her palms linger on Santana's skin.

"Mine now," she says, and wriggles obligingly as Santana fights to get the damn thing over her head; when it's off Brittany's hair is full of wild loops, and tumbles roughly down over the streamlined black of her sports bra.

"What now?" Santana says. Suspended. Burning and restless, waiting for the next word. It's like a game of Simon Says only you can't get caught out. Santana's enough of a natural contrarian that she still feels a stab of tension whenever she -- yeah, okay, the verb is _submits_ , isn't it? Whenever she submits. The fact that Brit is Brit makes it easier, because the girl's about as unselfconscious as it's possible to be. Reality's always been more flexible where she's concerned. So when she acts as though it's completely normal to say things and have Santana obey them, maybe in her head it is.

Put like that, it can be framed as something other than punishment. It's a slow shift of Brittany's gymnastic reality into Santana's, a sharing, a chance for them to rebuild their common ground where it's been crumbling away.

"I know you don't like it," Brittany says, very quiet, against her cheek. "Thanks for doing it anyway."

Santana presses her down against the pillow, kisses the hollow of her neck, kisses her mouth and feels it open easily beneath her own.

"I suppose it's not so bad," she says, slipping one hand under the waistband of Brittany's boyleg briefs, and Brittany's giggle turns into a caught breath.

~

The first person to catch on is Kurt, which is just weird, although Santana supposes that he's one of the few people in glee who isn't dating anyone else in the group, either openly or covertly -- Sam and Mercedes aren't fooling anyone, though it's kind of cute in a middle-school kind of way that they're trying to -- and so he actually keeps his eyes open and has a chance of seeing other people's problems.

Not that this is a _problem_ , exactly.

"Santana," he says, grabbing her arm as they all file out of the rehearsal room. Although it's less a grab and more a brief contact, the pressure of his hand enough to pull her up short, but releasing her almost at once.

"I'll catch up," Santana says to Brittany, who's hovering in the door. "What?"

Kurt takes a moment to shrug the leather strap of his bag even higher on his shoulder. His hair is an especially obvious _fuck you all, intolerant plebians_ today.

"I know you still don't like me all that much, and that's fine," he says. "And don't think this is some kind of -- homosexual outreach thing I'm doing, because that's not it either."

"Easy there, Elton, you sound almost as bitchy as me." She's kind of impressed.

"This thing that you and Brittany are doing."

"What thing?"

"Don't even, Santana," he says.

And yeah, all right, she knows Kurt well enough by now to realise that denying it will just extend the whole conversation, and also make it look like she feels -- well. Like it's something to hide instead of something to keep secret. There's a distinction there.

"What about it?"

She can see his resolve crumple. "Nothing. It's not my business."

"Damn right it isn’t." She heads for the door, and she's almost there when he takes a breath behind her, one of those deep singer's breaths that he and Mercedes and Rachel have a particular knack for. An inhalation like that will always make Santana fall silent in respect for the sounds she's heard follow.

"Santana."

She turns. She forgets how tall Kurt is, how much steely dignity he has, standing there in the middle of the room turning its emptiness into something like pathos. There's nothing mocking in his face, nothing dangerous.

"Who's it making happy?" he says.

"Both of us," Santana says.

He nods, and doesn't say anything else.

~

Brittany calls her at nine-thirty on a Monday night and says, "I was thinking about how everything that was meant to be bad for you suddenly isn't any more. Like chocolate. Isn't it healthy now? How did they do that?"

Santana smiles at her ceiling. "I don’t know."

"I do like chocolate, so that's good," Brit goes on. "You know what'd be nice, for lunch tomorrow? Chocolate brownies."

Santana's mouth is open and ready to deliver something like _I think they do rice pudding on Tuesdays_ when she stops and actually thinks. Her smile snaps back onto her face. You're on, babe, she thinks. You are _so_ on.

"I'm sure I can arrange something," she says, carelessly. She's already running down the stairs, quiet in her socked feet, and into the kitchen.

By the time Brittany hangs up she's got all the ingredients spread out on the kitchen bench and her mother is giving her disapproving looks.

"Bake sale tomorrow," Santana says, "forgot all about it," and, "fuck, why don't we have any eggs?"

Her mother tells her off for swearing. Santana pulls on a pair of tennis shoes and runs across the poorly lit road in her pajamas to knock on Mrs Dunlop's door and further elaborate on her story about bake sale emergencies. Seventy-two-year-old Mrs Dunlop is awake and perky, watching some German film with subtitles and sipping a glass of port, and she readily hands over a half-carton of eggs.

Santana cleans flour off every surface in the kitchen while the brownies are in the oven, not tired in the slightest. Then she reads a book while they cool down. It's nearing midnight when she seals the Tupperware container, but the hard joy of success propels her out of bed early the next morning; out of bed, for a quick jog, to school, and through a morning of mostly-shite classes.

They're rehearsing over lunch break, and Santana does her best saunter-with-attitude down the halls towards the rehearsal room, the container tucked under her arm.

"Hey, brownies!"

"Paws off, Samuel," she says, digging a friendly elbow into Sam's side with enough force that he stumbles. "Do I look like the kind of person who brings baked treats for everyone out of the goodness of my heart?"

Sam jogs backwards in front of her as they enter the room, looking her up and down with a grin. "Do you want me to answer that, Lopez?"

She rolls her eyes and takes the low steps two at a time so that she can slide into the seat next to Brittany. "Hey," she says, nudging the container Britward. "Thought you might like these."

Brittany pulls two brownies out and hands one to her, then lifts her own brownie in a polite pincer grip, like it's a glass of wine. Santana grins. Oh yeah. She is the best fucking girlfriend in the _world._

"Hey, brownies!" says Puck hopefully, and then everyone's looking at them.

They clink brownies. Or rather, gently smush. Crumbs fall everywhere, and Santana's about to minimise the damage by eating hers when she finds herself with a sudden, violent armful of Brittany.

"You are so amazing. I love your brownies," Brittany whispers, and Santana hears the important bit. She extricates her brownie from Brit's ponytail and kisses her forehead, and doesn't let her go.

"Get a room!" calls Quinn, and pelts them with a carrot stick.

_I was thinking about how everything that was meant to be bad for you suddenly isn't any more._

Yeah, Santana thinks. That just about covers it.

The thing is, if one day Brittany set down her jello cup and turned to her with that wistful look and said, "I really want a unicorn," Santana would find her a fucking unicorn, come hell, high water or the laws of fantasy versus reality, because it's not about penance any more. It's about the way that Brittany looks at her, and it’s about the way Santana feels when she relaxes into the knowledge that she's awesome, she's perfect, she can do anything.

Nobody's made her feel invincible before. She could get used to it.

"Be happy," Brittany says, head on her shoulder. "Could you do that for me?"

Santana brushes crumbs off her uniform skirt and smiles. "Too late."


End file.
